Hybrid visceral-renal debranching procedures with endovascular repair have been proposed as an appealing technique to treat conventional thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA). This approach, however, still remained controversial because of the non-physiological blood flow direction of its retrograde visceral revascularization (RVR) which is generally constructed from the aortic bifurcation or...

Retrograde dissection of the aorta is a rare but potentially life threatening complication of percutaneous coronary intervention. We describe a case of retrograde aortic dissection, which occurred during attempted percutaneous transluminal coroanary angioplasty (PTCA) of chronically occluded left anterior descending artery (LAD). Emergency coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) was performed to...

A 66-year-old gentleman presents with extent II thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA) secondary to chronic dissection with a maximal diameter of 6 cm. Partial thrombosis of false lumen in thoracic and abdominal aorta was present. Intimal tear was detected at the origin of the left subclavian artery and the dissection extended down to the aortic bifurcation. The left femoral artery, ascending ...

Normal pregnancy is associated with adaptive hemodynamic, hormonal, and vascular changes, and estrogen (E2) may promote vasodilation during pregnancy; however, the specific E2 receptor (ER) subtype, post-ER signaling mechanism, and vascular bed involved are unclear. We tested whether pregnancy-associated vascular adaptations involve changes in the expression/distribution/activity of distinct ER...

It is known that large arteries in situ are subjected to significant axial prestretch. This prestretch plays an important physiological role in optimizing the biomechanical response of an artery. It is also known that the prestretch declines with age. However, a detailed description of age-related changes in prestretch is available only for the abdominal aorta and for the femoropliteal artery. ...

Expression of epithelial cytokeratins type 8, 18 and 19 can be used to study smooth muscle cell differentiation during development. We studied the differentiation of smooth muscle cells in the ductus arteriosus before and during intimal thickening and compared the changes occurring in this vessel with the adjoining elastic ascending and descending aorta and the pulmonary trunk. The ductus arter...

OBJECTIVE To emphasize the diagnostic possibility of the anomalous origin of one pulmonary artery from the ascending aorta in infants with clinically refractory heart failure and no intracardiac structural defect. METHODS Retrospective study of 4 infants with refractory heart failure undergoing 2-dimensional echocardiographic study with subcostal, suprasternal, and parasternal views, and hemo...

Between October 1986 and February 1987 two young men with coarctation of the aorta and a hypoplastic isthmus were treated by a combined resection and isthmusplasty with implantation of the left internal mammary artery to the distal aorta. An appreciable drop in the systolic gradient was seen in both patients after the mammary artery anastomosis and haemodynamic variables across the repair conti...

We tried to determine alpha 1-adrenoceptor subtypes involved in noradrenaline-induced contractions of rat thoracic aorta and dog carotid artery. Prazosin competitively antagonized the contractions induced by noradrenaline in both the arteries with a high pKB value (approximately 9.7). WB4101, benoxathian, phentolamine, HV723 and 5-methylurapidil also competitively antagonized the responses to n...

The relation among glutathione-related enzyme activities, thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances of the human aorta and internal mammary artery, and serum lipids was studied in 40 male patients undergoing coronary revascularization. Glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase activities were significantly higher in the internal mammary artery, whereas glutathione transferase activity was ...